The sun was well up by the time they had finished refueling. The General called Carlos as soon as the Chinese dignitaries left and asked him to place four more phones into the second polar-route HC-130. Carlos told him that the first of the two HC-130 tankers was already 30 minutes into its flight to Hill and then was aiming for California, Hawaii, and Japan as ordered. He had placed two extra phones in the aircraft just in case. The general asked how the polar-route flight was progressing, and was told that the parachutes had arrived and were being loaded, and that the aircraft was fully fueled and would be out of McGuire within 20 minutes. General Allen asked Carlos to put six more phones in that aircraft.
“I just want to point out, General,” answered Carlos. “We have 241 phones in total. Ninety-seven are, or will be, operational here, with another 80 heading out to other establishments. We don’t know how much feed the satellites can take, but for the next couple of years, I reckon that around 500 phone numbers will be the maximum since Lee has guessed that Zedong Electronics has somewhere between 300 and 500 of these phones set up, of which we already have 241.”
“Roger that,” replied General Allen. “Three of these phones are for future communications with the Chinese government and the other three I will offer the Russian government. The Chinese government has already paid for the phones.”
“You said PAID for them?” asked Carlos, puzzled.
“Yep! They paid for them,” laughed the general. “They paid 21,000 gallons of gas for them.”
“Okay,” replied Carlos. “I’ll put the phone numbers down as Chinese governmental phones.”
“And leave the red numbers on, in case the Zedong officials reappear and our friends here can contact them. Bye for now,” finished General Allen.
They took off directly for Moscow, 12 hours ahead of them, and they felt better after Carlos told them that even though there was a bad storm over northern Europe, and the whole of Britain and Scandinavia was clouded over, that the area around Moscow was clear and that it shouldn’t change for the next 12 hours. After 12 hours of sleeping and resting by all the men, except for the pilots on duty, they landed in icy conditions on Moscow Central Airport’s runway. The lights were on, the runway cleared, and three camouflaged single-seat, piston-engine trainer aircraft had come on their radar screens two hours earlier, just before dark. The three other 130s joined General Allen’s aircraft in formation, Ghost Rider guiding them into the capital of Russia.
*****
Oliver was doing his usual in the early morning on the tenth day. This time he had company—a lot of company. Three men walked with him around the runway and checked the aircraft, stopping at each one and making mental notes while they chatted. Preston was on the left of the president, who was enjoying the morning walks and the freedom the White House couldn’t offer, and Mike Mallory walked on his right. The secret service men had been asked to keep watch but stay close to the house and nearer to the First Family, who now had the use of the whole house.
Grandpa Roebels and Michael were itching to get back to California, to check on the farm and their small engineering laboratory in their farm hangar, and start working on repairing the damage done to the aircraft equipment they had taken out of the general’s private ride.
They had left shortly afterwards in the Pilatus with two fully armed men as guards and an Air Force colonel—an ex-F-16 pilot who was to fly the aircraft back to the farm. Their flight plan was to land and refuel at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, deliver a satellite phone and orders from General Allen to form a civilian Air Force, and distribute any available military and civilian food to the people of Kansas.
From McConnell, they were to fly into Holloman AFB in New Mexico and give base leadership a phone as well as the same orders. From Holloman, they were flying up to Beale in northern California and then down to Travis Air Force Base to give them the same package. The two engineers would be dropped at their private airstrip, the two Air Force soldiers would first make sure that the farm was safe, and then they would remain with the two older men as protection.
The colonel would then make his way back across the states, visiting another five or six bases, handing out more packages and a presidential letter giving the base commanders the complete six phases of the food distribution plan copied on Presidential letterhead and with the Commander-in-Chief’s signature at the bottom. It was a one-page description for setting up the distribution system in their immediate areas. The president had received a packet of Presidential letterhead from the White House, and Martie typed and printed them out for him as needed.
Over the last two days, the entire group with the whole First Family involved, apart from having the odd battle with the enemy here and there, had worked on the plan when they had all been together at the farm. Preston had explained the latest developments of the plan to the general, and had gotten permission from the general to use all available Air Force personnel as long as their neighbor Army, Marine, Coast Guard, National Guard and Navy bases were included. The plan was pretty simple, and there was not much more that could be done for the people until the war was over.
Since there were so many Air Force bases around the country, the bases were perfect staging points for supplying food. Most of them had adequate food supplies to feed their personnel living on base, as well as thousands of civilians around the base, until the war was over. With the last news from the general, people were hopeful that it would only last another two weeks or so.
If they won the next battle, the enemy’s head would be cut off, and after the capture or destruction of the aircraft or ships they were using to enter the New York, the enemy would be at a disadvantage transporting fewer fighting soldiers over the ocean and into the United States.
Once the last battle was fought, only then could the whole new plan go into maximum effect with what was left of the country’s infrastructure. America needed all the C-130s to go to work feeding the people. The plan was to supply airports that had long enough runways to handle the C-130s with food in bulk that could then be distributed up to 200 miles in all directions by local aircraft. Each of the airports could be controlled by a platoon of soldiers, once there were enough soldiers and aircraft to fly them in, and they would guard the mission and the food.
The soldiers were to go out with each aircraft distributing the cases of rations to make sure that the food was handed out in a fair and orderly fashion. People would have to show their ID to get a week’s supply of food. The air bases would get their personnel working and count the millions of cases of military MREs (meal-ready to eat) that had their own flameless ration heater included, and FSRs (first strike rations) that were much lighter rations with a shorter shelf life and were eaten cold. Pilots flying out to distribute the food would need fuel. Luckily, many smaller airports still had supplies that could last several weeks, even into spring.
Phase One of the project was to get copies of the letter explaining the president’s plan on White House letterhead to all the Air Force bases in the country. Their first task was to communicate with any other Army, Navy, Coast Guard, National Guard, or Marine bases around the area and hand them a copy of the direct order from the president. Each Air Force base would receive a satellite phone, and a command center was set up at Andrews to begin work on the supply system after the war was over.
Phase Two had the Air Force bases locating and communicating with all local private airfields within 200 miles of their bases where aircraft could be commandeered for communications, as well as getting the airports ready to receive food supplies. This phase was to run from the war’s end to mid-spring, when most of the military food stores were expected to be exhausted.